My subject this afternoon is
the Holy Spirit of God intercedes for us, the saints. As a preface
to the sermon today, I'd like us to remember that God has promised
his people, I will never leave nor forsake you. And that Jesus
himself promised his disciples and promises us, and with you
always. The main passage that I'll read
today comes from the book of Romans chapter 8 and it's a long
passage. It will be 8 verses 18 through
39. And I apologize for the length
of this passage, but I'll be honest with you, I really couldn't
find a good place to break it up. because every line in this
particular passage is meaningful. Let me say as a preface also
to the comments to follow that this passage is familiar to us,
but I don't want it to be lost in its familiarity. The book
of Romans was written by the Apostle Paul to a real people
in a real place at a real time. He was conveying ideas to them,
speaking to them the very words of God, and he meant for them
to hear these words, understand these words and take them to
heart. Now, after 2000 years, the scripture can become familiar
to us. And I don't want this to be just
another reading of another passage. I'd like for us to hear it today.
As if we'd never heard it before, as if Paul wrote this letter
to us and it's new and fresh and that we could take from it
a message that Paul has to tell us. Again, Romans chapter eight,
verses 18 through 39. Paul says, for I consider that
the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing. with the glory that is to be
revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager
longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation
was subjected futilely, not willingly, but because of him who subjected
it in hope that the creation itself will be set free from
its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory
of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation
has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until
now. And not only the creation, but
we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit grown inwardly
as we eagerly wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption
of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not
hope. For who hopes for what he sees?
But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with
patience. Likewise, the spirit helps us
in our weakness, for we do not know what to pray for as we are. But the spirit himself intercedes
for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches
the hearts knows what is the mind of the spirit because the
spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
And we know that for those who love God, all things work together
for good. For those who are called according
to his purpose, for those whom he foreknew, he also predestined
to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he might
be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined,
he also called. And those whom he called, he
also justified. And those whom he justified,
he also glorified. What then shall we say to these
things? If God is for us, who can be
against us? He who did not spare his own
son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him
graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against
God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who
is to condemn? Jesus Christ is the one who died. More than that, who was raised,
who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for
us. Who shall separate us from the
love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress,
or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, For your sake
we are being killed all day long. We are regarded as sheep to be
slaughtered. Know in all these things we are
more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am sure
that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor things
present nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth Anything
else in all creation will be able to separate us from the
love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. It's an incredible passage. Our focus from that passage will
be verses 26 and 27 where we are told that the Spirit intercedes
for us. Also, I'd like to read to you
a couple of verses in the Gospel of John Chapter 14 verses 16
through 18. Jesus says, and I will ask the
father and he will give you another helper to be with you forever. Even the spirit of truth whom
the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows
him. You know him for he dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. John 14 verses
25 through 27. Jesus again says these things
I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the helper,
the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach
you all things and bring to you remembrance all that I have said
to you. Peace I leave with you. My peace
I give to you, not as the world gives, but I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled,
neither let them be afraid. John 16 verse 13 through 15. When the spirit of truth comes,
he will guide you into all truth. For he will not speak on his
own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak and he will
declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify
me for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that
the father has is mine. Therefore, I said that he will
take what is mine and declare it to you. Again, the subject,
the topic will be the Holy Spirit of God interceding for the saints. The passage in Roman comes from
Paul's letter written to the church in Rome. He had anticipated
a trip to Rome. He hoped to go to Rome, the capital
city of the empire, to visit the believers there. and to encourage
them in the faith. He had heard about the church
there. He was encouraged by the news
he heard. But as with any church, there's
good news and bad news. The church in Rome was a mix
of Jewish and Gentile believers. And as to be expected, there
were tensions in the church, divides in the church, arguments
over the Jewish religion and the place of it within the Christian
faith. were emerging in the church.
There were questions then of who may or may not be a valid
Christian. How much Jewish ritual is to
be observed? And is one maybe who was a Jew
before his call to Christ maybe a better Christian than a Gentile?
These type of things were making themselves known in the church.
And Paul addresses these issues in his letter. He builds up to
the passage that we read by addressing these issues of Jewish Gentile
separation in the church. He begins by explaining the condition
of the Gentiles prior to their conversion. The Gentiles were
followers of pagan religions. They did not worship the true
God. They were vile in their religious
practice and in their social practice. They were wicked and
evil people. Paul makes that plain in the
first chapter of Romans, particularly the end where he discusses the
advent, the coming of paganism and where it leads. The Jews
in the congregation would be very happy to hear Paul say these
things because, of course, any good Jewish believer understood
that the Gentiles deserve the wrath of God. But Paul doesn't
stop there. He recognizes then that the Jews
had their problems as well. The Jews in their midst, though
they claimed to be the people of God, the chosen people of
God, though they had the scripture, which Paul calls the very oracles
of God, Paul points out that the Jews had ignored their position
and their scripture, and they lived just like the Gentiles
did. The practices that the Gentiles
partook of, so did the Jews. Paul says, there's no benefit
then to the Jew in having the oracles of God because you're
just as wicked. You deserve the condemnation
of God the same as the Gentiles. He goes on to quote from the
Old Testament scripture from the prophets that there are none
righteous. No, not one. The purpose in this is to demonstrate
that all people are corrupt. There is none better. The Gentiles
were not more wicked than the Jews. All are depraved sinners. All need Christ. And Christ died
for all. Paul explains that it's grace
that saves. And grace is universal. And I
don't mean that in the religious universal sense where every man,
woman, and child is saved. I hope we understand that. When
I say universal, I mean that God reaches out in His election
beyond what we consider to be barriers and boundaries and He
saves as He will. Scripture says all tribes, all
tongues, all peoples. Paul makes that point. The question
is not where you came from, but where you are in Christ and where
you are going. The peripherals like race and
religion fade away to a new unity in Christ. Our concern is not
yesterday and its practice, but today and tomorrow in its practice. And Paul makes that point. He brings up then that our struggle
in the new life is with sin, and it's an ongoing struggle
because Christ has saved us, but we still wrestle with sin
as long as we dwell in corrupt flesh, which we will until we
breathe our last. The struggle is universal to
Jew and Gentile alike. The struggle is universal to
the Apostle Paul. In what we reference as the end
of chapter 7 of the book of Romans, Paul includes himself in the
struggle. He says, I know what's wrong. I know what's right. I know what
to do, and yet I don't do it, and I know what not to do, but
I do it the same. Paul recognized this even in
himself. This is not an argument limited
to Jewish believers or Gentile believers. It is universal to
all Christians. We have a unity in Christ And
we have, unfortunately, a unity in our depravity. And now we
wrestle. We wrestle to overcome in Christ
our depravity. Paul cries out, what a wretched
man am I. Who will rescue me from this
body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus
Christ our Lord. When you go back to these passages,
read them not as a dry passage, but with emotion. See if you
can sense the struggle that Paul is voicing here. And it's a struggle
that is common to every one of us as believers. Every one of us wrestles with
this issue. We come to Christ, but we are
not instantaneously transformed from fleshly to non fleshly,
from mortal to immortal. That transformation comes later. Now we live in the flesh and
we struggle in Christ to overcome the flesh. And this struggle
is ongoing lifelong. And there are aspects of it that
are spiritual. There are aspects of it that
are emotional. And there are aspects of it that
are physical. Sin has affected every part of
God's creation. We read in the passage that the
very creation groans. It was subjected to sin. it groans. Scripture said in the passage
we read, we groan. Sin has affected all of us. And as I said, the effects are
spiritual, emotional, and physical. And this is where we come back
in to the passage we read and particularly the focal verses,
that being 26 and 27. Likewise, the spirit helps us
in our weakness, for we do not know what to pray for as we ought,
but the spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep
for words. Paul, looking at his own sinful
condition, was reduced to emotional rubble. And let's not miss the
emotion in what he says. What a wretched man am I! Paul, as he considered his own
life, was broken. What a wretched man am I! But, a few short verses later,
He comes out of this emotional wreckage because there's hope
even in His pitiful state. And that is all in the Lord Jesus
Christ. And as Christ has given the Spirit,
the Spirit intercedes for us. Jesus promised the Spirit. In John, chapters 13 through
17, we have a picture of one of the most intimate evenings
in the life of Christ and His disciples. It is that time in
the upper room. Jesus is away from the crowds. He knows he will be arrested
soon, taken to a mock trial, beaten and abused and killed. He's spending these last few
hours with the disciples, those closest to him. And he tells
them. that their world, everything
they knew, every expectation they had, every hope they had,
is fixing to be crushed. The story of Christ is good news
in total. Parts of it, when isolated from
the whole, are horrible. This evening, as he's with his
disciples, he's telling them the dark side of the gospel. But, in the midst of this terrible
news, he says, do not be troubled. Don't be troubled. Everything
you're fixing to see around you is going to be opposite of what
you expect. The world is going to come undone
for you, but do not be troubled. Trust in God. Trust also in me. That's what Christ tells them. And then he backs up these words
with a promise. There's another coming. I'm going
away, but there's another coming, a counselor, a comforter, and
he will come to you. He will be with you. And indeed
he will be in you. This is the Holy spirit, the
spirit of truth. And this comforter will teach
you. Teach you from inside. He will
teach you and He will bring to mind all that I have told you
and taught you. That's what Christ tells them
will be their strength and comfort in the days to come. They're
going to see horrible things happen. They are not going to
be able to make sense of any of it. But God is sending a comforter
and this comforter will teach them and tell them and lead them
into the truth and cause them to remember all that Jesus taught
them. Trust in God, trust also in me,
he said. There is one coming, a comforter
who will lead you into the truth. In the passage we read. Again,
it says the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought
to pray. But the Spirit intercedes for
us. I want you to notice that it
says with groans that words cannot express. Sense the intensity
of that phrase. The Spirit is not just glibly,
casually uttering a word here and there on our behalf. The very Spirit of God, the Comforter
that Christ promised to dwell with us and in us, intercedes,
comes before God on our behalf, but with groans so intense, so
deep, so heartfelt that words can't even express what the Spirit is praying. Take comfort in that. This is
the comfort that Christ promised the apostles, the disciples then,
later apostles. And it is the promise that we
have as well that the Spirit of God intercedes for us. And it's an interceding again
that is not just casual. It's not remote from us. It is from deep within us sensing
all that the will of God has for us and all that we need and
the Spirit groans on our behalf. Jesus promised the Comforter
to the disciples in their darkest hour. At a time when they would be
so broken down that they too wouldn't even know what to pray. But He said the Comforter would
come to them and would pray on their behalf. And he did. How wonderful is our God. Let us consider that. Take it
to heart. He promised that he will never leave or forsake us. Jesus told us he would never.
He would always be with us. And then he promised us the spirit
that would be with us and in us and interceding on our behalf.
Let's take that to heart. This is important for us to remember. And the reason is the scripture
tells us and our own experience confirms it for us that our lives
are short and full of trouble. For all of our planning, for
all of our good intentions, Even in the midst of the good
lives that we lead and the good works that we may do, we are
troubled. And sometimes we are broken down. Not just troubled, but broken
down. We have our heartbreaks. We have
our spiritual pitfalls. We have our physical ailments. We find ourselves broken down. Life is that way. Any of us in
this congregation that have any age on us at all certainly know
that. We certainly know that we have
experienced the hardships of life in those near and dear to
us or in our own lives. None of us is immune. None of
us. But the same comfort that Jesus
promised the disciples, He has made promise to us as well. And
as He fulfilled it in the life of every Christian before us,
He will fulfill it in us also. And that should comfort our hearts.
The Scriptures are full of examples of God's people afflicted. We look at the life of Job. And
a quick look at Job's life would tell you he was a righteous man.
The Scripture said he was a perfect man. Now, of course, we know
he was a depraved sinner, so in the absolute sense of the
word perfect, no, he wasn't perfect. But as the Scripture uses it,
it meant that it was the intention in his heart to be righteous
and live righteously and so far as he could, as a man, he did. But my goodness, what happened
to Job? Look at the things he suffered. We see the life of Joseph, a
favored son in his family, and yet, betrayed by his own family,
cast into the pit, and then made a slave in a foreign country. Afflicted. God's people. We see the nation of Israel in
slavery and bondage in Egypt for 400 years. God's people. God's people afflicted. We see the story of Ruth, the
family, afflicted, suffering greatly. We see the
life of David. God's anointed, God's chosen. Suffered persecution, affliction,
People hated him. Dissension in his own family.
The list goes on. Again, God's people, because
sin is indeed in this world, and sin is unfortunately in us
as well, God's people suffer. Of course, the supreme example
of God's own suffering is in the life of Christ. Completely
undeserved on His part. Nonetheless, Look at what he
suffered. God's own suffering. Suffering. None of us are immune
to the impact of sin. Our own sin, the sin of others,
or the innate sin that is in the world. We need the assurance of God. We need the promise of Christ.
We need the presence of the Holy Spirit. intercede for us. There are lessons to be learned
always as we look at the scripture and at the lives of God's people
in the scripture. I will tell you one lesson that
we can learn is that suffering of one sort
or another can come upon us quickly. and unexpectedly. Suffering can be painful and
intense both spiritually and physically. And suffering can last a long,
long, long time. That's not something we like
to hear. But God but sometimes will carry his people through
intense suffering for long periods of time. Often in the midst of suffering,
we cannot see or feel God working. That's hard for us to take as
well. You read the Psalms of David. And you sense the agony
in places that he feels because people are camped around him
trying to kill him from every side. And yet he hears in the
back of his mind that he is the anointed, the chosen of God,
but he can't sense God working because of all the adversity
around him. Sometimes we feel that way because
we can't see or feel God working. Sometimes we can feel that we've
been forsaken. We go long enough in our suffering,
in our pain, in our agony, and we do not see positive change. We're weak. and we will succumb
and we will begin to think sometimes that God may have just cast us
aside. He may have put us away. What
does God care for me? These are very real experiences
in the lives of God's people. Very real. Now, let me and I feel hesitant to do this, but
I think it makes a point. Let me offer a personal experience. In November, immediately after
Thanksgiving, I had a strange episode. I thought I was having a heart
attack. Never had anything like that
happen to me in my life. I hurt in ways that I had never
physically hurt in my life. I didn't know what was going
on. At that point, I crumbled. I crumbled. My mind was racing. I was confused. I was hurt. I
did not know what was going on. And I tried to focus my thoughts
during that period, that immediate period, And I couldn't stay anywhere.
I couldn't stay focused. I could not keep myself together. As I laid there in the hospital
and people were poking needles in me and people were hooking
me up to every computer in the county and things were going
crazy and activity all around me, I was thinking, I'm a Christian. I need to be focused on God. I need to get some peace. And then my mind would shoot
over here. What are they doing? What is this in my arm? What's
going on? What is going on with my kids?
Am I dying? Here's the point. I couldn't pray. I could not
pray. It was not in me to pray. As a Christian, I should pray,
I must pray. Bring it to Jesus. What a friend
we have in Jesus. I couldn't carry it to Jesus. I was in no condition to pray. The comfort of all that is, was
I for even a moment forsaken by God? No. Was Jesus with me? Absolutely. Was there intercession
on my behalf? Yes. And indeed, more intense
and heartfelt intercession on my behalf than I could have prayed
for myself. The Holy Spirit of God intercedes
for the saints of God. How wonderful is that? How wonderful is that to know
that God loves his people so much that he will care for us
in every moment of our life, in every way that we need, and
indeed knowing what we need when we can't even begin to know what
we need. Now, again, I said I'm hesitant
to use myself as an example, but you know, we've got people in the church
right now who are in desperate situations. And there's great comfort in
knowing that the very spirit of God, the Holy Spirit of God,
is interceding on behalf of our brothers and sisters right now
even more intensely than we can do. What a comfort that is to know
that God is tenderly caring for each and every one of His own.
That He is so involved with our lives that even at moments that
we and our dear brothers and sisters cannot take care of ourselves,
He is tending to us. I find great comfort in that. We need to know that. We need
to take that to heart. It's a wonderful, wonderful thought
to know now and to hold to and remember and then certainly hold
to in times of trouble that God is with us and that the very
Spirit of God is interceding for us on our behalf. We are not left abandoned. We
are never forsaken. The Spirit of God is interceding
for us. And that with an intensity that
we could never, never achieve on our own. we should take comfort in that.
God has promised that he will never leave or forsake us. Jesus said, I am with you always. And we were reminded by the Apostle
Paul that the very Spirit of God prays for us, intercedes
for us, before God and that with heartfeltness that is the heart
of God himself. Let us always remember these
things. Let us hold to them and let us take comfort in them now
and certainly I pray we'll take comfort in that in the day and
the hour of the crisis that will come. As we live life, each one
of us will face that hour of crisis. It's a certainty. We are sinners saved by grace,
but we are yet in a fallen world. We will face the hour of crisis.
Let us take comfort always that the Spirit of God intercedes
for us. Thank you.